Swedish startup Cetasol secures EUR 2.3 million for AI-driven bunker fuel saving solution

Cetasol, a Swedish startup developing AI-driven decision support solutions for increased insights and reduced costs and GHG emissions, has secured a seed funding round of EUR 2.3 million (USD 2.7 million).

The round brought in new investors BackingMinds and Shift4Good, alongside continued support from existing investor Sarsia.

Cetasol’s core solution is iHelm — a decision support solution for individual vessels and the entire fleet. iHelm helps save fuel, track vessel performance, stay compliant, and maximise uptime – with real-time decision support and data-driven insights.  iHelm, enables 10 to 25% fuel savings for small to mid-size vessels. 

With this investment round, Cetasol can continue to introduce AI-driven decision support and digital twin technology to the maritime industry for increased fuel optimisations, insights and predictive maintenance.

“This investment confirms that our approach to AI-driven decision support and maritime sustainability is both needed and trusted. With this support, we are scaling faster and wider — delivering intelligent solutions to maritime operations globally.” Ethan Faghani, CEO and Founder of Cetasol.

Shipping is responsible for about 3% of global CO₂ emissions. While innovation and investment have largely focused on electrification and large vessels, small and mid-sized vessels, which make up nearly 90% of the global fleet, offer the fastest and most scalable path to significant climate impact.

This is where fuel optimisation, driven by real vessel data, comes in. By leveraging both real-time and historical data, operators can make informed decisions to optimize performance and reduce costs and GHG emissions. That is why Cetasol developed iHelm — to reduce emissions from today’s vessels using real operational data.

The system continuously gathers data directly from the vessel and through Cetasol’s digital twin technology of vessel and engine, enabling real-time recommendations to the captain via edge computing. All operational data is also transmitted to a cloud-based dashboard, giving fleet managers and business owners access to both real-time and historical performance metrics, AI-driven decision support and predictive maintenance capabilities.

Photo credit: Cetasol
Published: 29 September, 2025